Photos of the day 12/14

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President Barack Obama wipes his eye as he talks about the Connecticut elementary school shooting in the White House briefing room in Washington. Carolyn Kaster/AP

Connecticut State Police lead children from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., following a shooting there that left at least 30 people dead, many of them children. Shannon Hicks/Newtown Bee/AP

A child yawns as women stage a sit-in protest and block a road to condemn the ongoing killings of Shiite Muslims in Karachi, Pakistan. Protesters demanded security for members of the Shiite community, who are subjected to target killings in major cities of Pakistan. Shakil Adil/AP

A Palestinian protester walks near burning tires during clashes with Israeli soldiers following a demonstration against the expansion of the nearby Jewish settlement of Kdumim in the northern West Bank village of Kufr Qaddum, near Nablus. Nasser Ishtayeh/AP

Military personnel attend a mass to pray for Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela. President Chavez underwent a six-hour cancer operation in Cuba, the government said. The 58-year-old's health has deteriorated dramatically since he won re-election two months ago, casting doubt on the future of his '21st century socialism' project, which won him huge support among the poor but infuriated adversaries who denounce him as a fledgling dictator. Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

A female swimmer jumps into Houhai Lake, which is partially-covered with ice, in central Beijing. Jason Lee/Reuters

Actress Liv Tyler attends the 'Change Begins Within: An Historic Night of Jazz to benefit The David Lynch Foundation' event in New York Thursday night. Andrew Kelly/Reuters

A tame wolf lies in the snow as it plays in a field near the remote village of Sosnovy Bor, Belarus. Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters

Employees stoke a furnace to melt the copper and tin mixture used to cast the bronze bell 'Anne-Genevieve' at the French bell foundry Cornille Havard in Villedieu-les-Poeles in Normandy. The foundry, using medieval methods, was chosen to design and cast the eight replacement bronze bells for the north tower of Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, set to be finished in time to ring in the 850th anniversary of the cathedral next year. Charles Platiau/Reuters

The 78.74-foot-tall Christmas tree is lit in St. Peter's square at the Vatican. Gregorio Borgia/AP

Children play on a snowboard as cold winter temperatures hit the country in Bucharest, Romania. Bogdan Cristel/Reuters

Oregon teammates celebrate after upsetting Penn State in the national semifinals of the NCAA college women's volleyball tournament semifinal in Louisville, Ky. Garry Jones/AP

A portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung glows in the spotlight as dusk descends upon Pyongyang, North Korea. Ng Han Guan/AP

Supporters of Mam Sonando, an owner of a local independent radio station, protest near the Appeal Court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A Cambodian court denied a bail request to the broadcaster and land-rights campaigner who was sentenced to 20 years in jail. The French national was convicted of leading an anti-state rebellion, a verdict condemned by activists as a further crackdown on human rights. Samrang Pring/Reuters

A boy enacts a hanging scene during a function to observe Martyr's Day in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Bangladesh remembers the country's intellectuals who were killed on this day during the country's independence war against Pakistan in 1971. A.M.Ahad/AP

Children watch fish on display at an aquarium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vincent Thian/AP

South Korea's presidential candidate Moon Jae-in (c.) of the main opposition Democratic United Party greets supporters attending his campaign rally in Busan. The country's presidential election will be held on December 19. Woohae Cho/Reuters

A vendor grills a traditional sweet snack called pulot, or sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, on top of oil barrels at his stall in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia. Heri Juanda/AP

A young Myanmar refugee boy carries drinking water on the outskirts of Jammu, India. More than 4,000 refugees who fled Myanmar because of ethnic strife in 1992 have been living at camps for more than five years. Channi Anand/AP

Winner Lara Gut of Switzerland (l.) and Nadja Kamer of Switzerland, who came in third, celebrate with champagne on the podium after a women's Alpine Ski World Cup downhill race in Val d'Isere, France. Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone/AP

A man walks through a frozen fountain during a snowfall in Milan, Italy. Luca Bruno/AP

A Palestinian youth holds a model of a Hamas-made rocket during a rally in the West Bank city of Hebron, marking the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas. It was one of the first rallies Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas allowed to take place in the West Bank since 2007, when his Islamist rivals Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Ammar Awad/Reuters

North Korean soldiers applaud during a mass rally organized to celebrate the success of a rocket launch that sent a satellite into space on Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. As the US led international condemnation of what it calls a covert test of missile technology, top North Korean officials denied the allegations and maintained the country's right to develop its space program. Ng Han Guan/AP

A vendor reads a newspaper at a wholesale vegetable market in Kolkata, India. Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters

Miss Australia 2012 Renae Ayris gets her hair done by a stylist backstage during the 2012 Miss Universe Presentation Show at PH Live in Las Vegas, Nev. The Miss Universe 2012 pageant will be held on December 19. Frank Szelwach/Miss Universe Organization L.P/Reuters

Art collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos poses for photographers as he stands under an artwork called 'It happens when the body is the anatomy of time, 2000' by Ernesto Neto, during a preview at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, Scotland. The preview highlighted works from an exhibition called 'From Death to Death and Other Small Tales.' David Moir/Reuters

Cincinnati Bengals' A.J. Green (r.) catches an orange to juggle as Andy Dalton (c.) and NFL Network's Steve Mariucci look on after an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Philadelphia. Cincinnati won 34-13. Matt Rourke/AP

A police dog that is trained to check bags for explosive particles sits next to its handler at a military base in Quito, Ecuador. Guillermo Granja/Reuters

On Friday, Russia's sports ministry denied accusations of state-sponsored doping that implicate more than 1,000 athletes across more than 30 sports in sample swapping, tampering with samples, and taking steroid cocktails designed to evade Olympic testing.